MOSCOW, July 20. /TASS/. The state prosecutor on Thursday demanded that blogger Alexey Navalny be sentenced to 20 years in a penal colony in the case of creating an extremist community, his lawyer Olga Mikhailova told TASS.

"The prosecutor demanded that Navalny be found guilty under Part 3 of Article 282.1 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Creation of an extremist community and participation in it"), as well as for financing extremist activities, public calls for extremist activities, and demanded that he be sentenced to 20 years in prison, serving out his sentence in a maximum-security prison," the lawyer said.

The second defendant in the case is the former technical director of Navalny's YouTube channel, Daniil Kholodny. The prosecutor demanded that he be found guilty of creating an extremist community and organizing the activities of an extremist organization, and that he be sentenced to 10 years in a maximum-security prison.

The trial is taking place in a prison in the Vladimir Region, where Navalny is serving a sentence in another case. It is being held behind closed doors for fear of reprisals against the participants in the trial.

New case against Navalny

A criminal case was opened against Navalny, Leonid Volkov (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia), Ivan Zhdanov (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia) for organizing an extremist community. Lyubov Sobol (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia), Georgy Alburov (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia) and others are accused of participating in an extremist community. Most of the defendants in the case now live outside Russia.

According to the Investigative Committee (IC), in 2014 or later, Navalny, as the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (an organization recognized as extremist and liquidated in Russia), created an extremist community and directed it to carry out extremist activities aimed at changing the foundations of the Russian constitutional order, undermining public security and state integrity. During this period, Zhdanov and Volkov participated in Navalny's criminal activities. The IC pointed out that in order to ensure the activities of the extremist community, including its financing, as well as to create conditions for the commission of extremist crimes, and involve new participants, the organizers established eight non-profit organizations, as well as commercial organizations, which were subdivisions of the community.